Gluten-Free Diet

Should You Be Cutting Gluten Out Of Your Diet, Too?

It’s a law of human nature that as soon as something becomes popular, haters and skeptics will rise and ridicule.

I get it. As a skeptic myself, I encourage everyone to properly inform themselves on a topic before hopping on any bandwagon. In the nutrition sphere, gluten is a scapegoat for a lot of people right now. Zealots claim that it’s pure poison, and others say it’s all a scam. While I’m pleased to see that people have become more aware of the potential health effects of gluten, I fear its popularity will cloud the number of clinical trials that are being done to elucidate the truth.

The fact that gluten-free diets have become a fad does not invalidate gluten-free diets as a legitimate therapeutic option for people with a sensitivity or intolerance to gluten. What about the general population? If someone doesn’t feel any discomfort after eating a slice of pizza or a bowl of spaghetti, should they avoid gluten anyways — just in case?

Gluten is popular. As of September 3, 2014, Amazon.com listed 154,930 entries for the topic “gluten-free.” A Google search at the same time for “gluten-free diet” produced more than 14.5 million results. Celebrity endorsements from stars like Miley Cyrus, Kim Kardashian, and Lady Gaga, who attribute their weight loss successes to gluten avoidance, also add to gluten’s popularity. In a survey, the No. 1 reason consumers cite for buying gluten-free products is that they are perceived to be healthier than their gluten-containing counterparts. This means that people will buy gluten-free cookies over regular cookies.

Let’s be clear: Gluten-free junk food is still junk food.

The scam is understandably perpetrated by the food industry. The gluten-free foods market is expected to hit $4.2 billion this year, and at the rate it’s going, by 2017, gluten-free sales could grow to more than $6.6 billion. Gluten-free foods are a ridiculously lucrative business.

What Is Gluten?

People can get evangelical about being gluten-free, and I can understand how that can be annoying. As Jimmy Kimmel beautifully illustrated in one of his Pedestrian Question segments, most people who follow a gluten-free diet don’t even know what gluten is!

Here’s the answer: Gluten is a composite of two proteins, gliadin and glutenin, that is bound to starch molecules in the seeds of wheat and related grains. Together, glutenin and gliadin make up about 80% of a wheat kernel’s protein content. In bread making, glutenin provides most of the strength and elasticity of the dough, allowing it to bounce back after it has been stretched, and gliadin provides its stretch. As a binding protein, gluten is added to many processed foods to impart a chewy texture, or as a thickening or stabilizing agent. Food manufacturers add gluten to products that don’t even contain wheat, such as imitation meats, beer, soy sauce, ketchup, ice cream, and pet foods. In essence, gluten is everywhere.

Gluten Likes To Stick Around & Cause Problems

Gluten’s binding ability can cause havoc on the intestinal walls of some people. In celiac disease, gluten causes an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the lining of the small intestine. This causes inflammation and damage to the gut and prevents the absorption of nutrients and vitamins. Weight loss, nutrient deficiency, low bone mineral density, skin rashes, and neurological problems ensue. When celiac patients eat gluten, they get painful digestive issues like bloating, diarrhea, gas, and stomach aches.

When gluten is in the gut of a person with celiac disease, it stimulates the release of a protein called zonulin. Discovered only 14 years ago, zonulin was found to mess with the ability of intestinal cells to stick tightly together. Your gut acts like the Great Wall of China — it keeps foreign invaders out. Loosely-held intestinal cells allow large molecules like undigested food particles, whole proteins, bacteria, toxins, and other things you swallowed, to pass directly from your gut into your bloodstream. Anything that doesn’t belong in your blood is aggressively attacked by your immune system to prevent them causing further harm.

Increased intestinal permeability, or “leaky gut,” is characteristic of celiac. When gluten enters the blood, it interacts and binds with an enzyme called tissue transglutaminase, found virtually everywhere in your body. When your immune system produces antibodies to attack gluten, it will produce antibodies for both gliadin (part of gluten) and tissue transglutaminase. This is bad news for the celiac patient since their immune system will now attack an enzyme that is naturally made by the body — the precise definition of an autoimmune disease. And since tissue transglutaminase is almost everywhere in the body, any organ can be attacked. Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, for example, is an autoimmune disorder where tissue transglutaminase in the thyroid is attacked by the immune system. Eliminating gluten from the diet has been found to be very effective in treating Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.